


bunny rabbits are not the only food group!

by orphan_account



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Can't We All Just Be Friends?, Crack-ish, Food Porn, Jossed, Mama Stiles, Multi, Pack Dynamics, Pre-Slash, There Is No Lycan Review Board
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-16
Updated: 2012-05-23
Packaged: 2017-11-05 11:41:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/405996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The only thing stupider than getting killed is getting killed because there’s not enough fiber in your diet. Written for <a href="http://derekstiles.dreamwidth.org/2658.html">derekstiles</a> at DW.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: while it may appear as though this story has a plot, it in fact does not. It is in fact written, as the technical term goes, "by the seat of my pants." Also known as "wherein the author fakes it 'till she makes it." Forgive me.

What Stiles knows about Derek, that nobody else knows, is that he isn’t actually living in the burnt-out shell of his family home, but in a modest motel room at the Beacon Hills Super 8 – just as shoddy and dodgy and creepifying, for ambiance purposes, but at least it has running water. 

Nobody else knows this about Derek because nobody bothers to ask, maybe because everyone just assumes that Derek doesn’t exist outside of the hours that he’s making them run control exercises and creeping around the high school and glowering noisily in their general direction. Stiles doesn’t blame them, because wow, annoying, but still, do they think the guy exists solely on cobwebs and anger? Dude has to _eat_.

This is how Stiles, inadvertently, gets to not only see the inside of Derek’s motel room, but to actually spend time inside of it, _with Derek present._ Because as Stiles’s mom used to say, usually to his dad, the way to a man’s heart is always through his stomach. Apparently this is just as wise of a statement when applied to werewolves, even super grumpy ones with dark pasts. 

It takes about ten minutes and a beef casserole to get Stiles over the threshold, but oh, it’s worth it. Not just because time spent with Derek is always time well spent, in Stiles’s opinion, but because obviously the guy needs some serious help with his own personal care and grooming, if the state of his room is anything to go by. 

“You – seriously,” Stiles sputters, wading through the infinite, never ending, seriously mythically, epically big, pile of dirty laundry on the floor beside Derek’s bed. “How do you always have clean clothes? _Do_ you wear clean clothes? Ew, ew, man, c’mon, just because you’re animalistically-inclined doesn’t mean you can get away with never washing your boxers, that’s super gross.”

Derek leans against the dresser, eating directly out of the casserole dish, not even bothering with silverware. He’s managing to inhale the thing without coming off as a rabid dog, and being kind of clean about the whole thing, too; Stiles is pretty impressed. 

“Animalistically-inclined?”

“It’s a euphemism.” Derek looks at him blankly. “Eu-phem-is-im.”

“I’m not deaf,” Derek says sourly, scowling. “I also know what euphemism means, idiot, I just think it’s stupid.”

“I think we should discuss the verbal abuse issue,” Stiles says staunchly. “Especially if I’m going to be feeding and clothing you, because that seriously crosses the line from ‘grumpy’ to ‘needlessly bitter and mean.’ Don’t bite the hand the feeds you, man, and I do mean that metaphorically _and_ literally.”

“What do you mean, clothing me?” Derek asks. 

“Well obviously,” Stiles exclaims, flailing around, trying to indicate Derek’s general state of sloppy, messy, dirtiness without falling face first into the swamp pile of dirty muscle shirts and jeans. “What do you think? What the hell did you do, all on your own in New York? I bet you just bought a new outfit every time the one you were wearing got dirty. Or just glared at some poor dude on the street until he gave you his jeans out of pure terror.”

Derek shrugs. “Sure. That’s what I did,” he says evenly.

“You’re way too good at deadpan.” Stiles tries out his own glower on him. At the raised eyebrow he gets in return, which is basically Derek’s _you amuse me and I will let you live because of it_ expression, it’s not all that intimidating. “Just shut up, you’re hopeless. God, did you eat the entire thing already? I’ve only been here ten minutes! Do you ever eat? How’s your blood sugar?”

Derek actually smirks then, and turns on his heel to stalk the three feet to the bathroom, and this is how Stiles gets to witness Derek brushing his teeth, which is glorious on a level that Stiles cannot fully even comprehend. Like, he uses _toothpaste._ His toothbrush has a _purple handle._ And, most glorious of all, he _brushes after every meal._ No, really!

(If he ever gets to see Derek doing something even more normal, like watching TV or scratching himself or bitching vaguely about politics, he might actually keel over dead, because it would probably be the equivalent to wearing the Shroud of Turin as a cape or taking a bubble bath in the Ark of the Covenant, on the sacred rare holiness scale.)

But, orally speaking aside, his hygiene could use some serious work. Stiles does six full loads to get through the mountain on Derek’s floor, and then he hasn’t even touched the dresser drawers.

“You can’t just throw it all in like this!” Stiles says one afternoon, aghast. “Well no wonder your clothes are always wrinkled.”

Derek’s doing pull-ups in the frame of the bathroom door, and his sweat is dripping all over the freaking place. Stiles twitches and tries not to look. “Worked fine so far,” he grits through his teeth, grunting between words. 

“I have no idea how you are even still alive,” Stiles informs him. Derek drops to the ground freakishly gracefully and shrugs. 

So Stiles washes all the shit in his drawers, too, and then there’s a bunch of dirty dishes piled up from all the food he’s been bringing over on his laundry trips, and well, _Derek_ isn’t going to wash them, and then Stiles notices that Derek has a secret cache of Monsters in the mini fridge, which is just, God, so wrong, and then while he’s at the store stocking up on bottled water and Gatorade and organic coffee and black tea, he figures he might as well pick up some food too while he’s there, and well, long story short, he shows up at Derek’s room three hours later with three loaves of bread, a huge bag of walnuts and sunflower seeds, a bunch of bananas, six mangos, a package of frozen salmon and a gallon of milk. 

Derek stares him down as Stiles is attempting to shove it all into the tiny fridge. Stiles just shrugs, kind of at a loss, himself. 

“You eat worse than my dad,” he mumbles, and Derek just grunts and snags a mango. Stiles decides to take that as a thank you.

 

The thing is, is that Stiles’s mom died, and that sucked, and the suckiest part was that it was from cancer, so it wasn’t like there was a convenient, rabid, evil werewolf that he could take revenge on or anything. It was just – this sudden, gaping hole in his life that his dad kept trying and failing to fill up with fishing trips and inappropriately expensive Christmas presents and really, really lenient curfews, but all it did was rub it in, really, and so it still sucked. And Stiles may have a tiny, tiny complex, especially since that time his dad got shot at by a home invader _and_ scolded by his doctor for his blood pressure, all in the same week, seriously. 

Also the whole werewolf…situation, thing, predicament. That doesn’t help at all.

It just constantly confuses Stiles, to the point of just pure, cross-eyed craziness, how glib people are about their own well-being, especially the people that Stiles cares about. Like Stiles doesn’t have _enough_ to worry about without Scott going and falling in love with a freaking _werewolf hunter,_ Jesus Christ on a soda cracker. 

So if Stiles is going to research the hell out of everything and chase down Scott when he goes crazy and tries to attack their English teacher for scolding Allison in class or do Derek Hale’s fucking grocery shopping, then _he will do it right,_ goddamn it. Because the only thing stupider than getting killed is getting killed because there’s not enough fiber in your diet. 

(The fact that Stiles spends an inordinate amount of time worrying about Derek’s diet, specifically, has nothing at all to do with anything, just that, he’s the Alpha now, and he probably eats a lot more forest creatures than the others, and bunny rabbits are not the only food group, seriously.)

 

Another thing Stiles finds out about Derek that the others don’t know (he should start a list, or a blog – maybe not a public blog, though) is that he isn’t nearly as terrifying as he seems. 

Or maybe it’s just that, well, Derek shows up and demands food now whenever Stiles is too slow in bringing it over, and once you’ve seen the guy threatening murder over the severe lack of casserole in his life, well, the mystery’s just gone. 

“You could, you know, get an actual apartment,” Stiles mentions, “with a kitchen. And you could cook for yourself! Like an adult!”

“Why would I cook for myself when you do it all the time,” Derek says, more of a statement than a question, really. Or an order. Possibly. “Saves time.”

“I’m so glad I’m here to make your life more convenient,” Stiles says, and secretly really means it. Pathetic, he is so deeply pathetic. 

Derek jumps up to sit on the counter – well, more like slithers, or slinks, or some other word that means super graceful – and makes his _I’m secretly grateful, really, I just have trouble expressing my emotions because of my troubled past_ face. Stiles may be reading into that one a little bit. “You don’t have to cook for me,” he says.

“I know,” Stiles says, with no small amount of bitchiness. 

“And yet,” Derek replies.

“And yet,” Stiles repeats, and carefully hands him a spoonful of baked potato soup. Derek takes it, and yep, that’s definitely his food face. It’s a good face. 

“Needs more salt,” Derek mutters, handing the spoon back, licking his lips lazily.

“You’re welcome,” Stiles says, with great satisfaction. 

 

“So,” Scott says, one morning, “what gives, man?”

Stiles looks up at him blankly. “…uh.”

Scott’s face twists into an expression not unlike the one Stiles’s grandmother makes whenever he tells her that no, he hasn’t met any nice Jewish girls recently and also, there are no Jewish people in Beacon Hills as far as he knows, so the prospects aren’t looking good. “You’ve been making Derek dinner like, every night.”

“Yes, that is true,” Stiles answers warily, wondering vaguely if he’s about to be forced to have the _we’re allowed to have other friends_ talk with Scott, again. “What about it?”

“So you’re a really good cook.”

“Thank you,” Stiles says, pleased. 

“So,” Scott says, sliding smoothly into the seat next to Stiles’s, “how come he gets home delivery and I don’t?” 

Stiles rolls his eyes dramatically.

“We’ve been best friends for _years,”_ Scott says, slashing his hands through the air angrily. “Way longer than you’ve even known Derek. When was the last time you even brought cookies to school, Stiles? I feel deprived.”

Stiles bites his lip and tries very hard to look annoyed. “Are you actually trying to _pout_ your way into cookies?”

“Yes,” Scott says unrepentantly. "You've had my mom's cooking. You know my pain."

Stiles bites his lip. Mrs. McCall really is that bad. There should be a law. “What kind of cookies?”

“Cinnamon chocolate chip,” Scott says, not missing a beat. “No – almond coconut. No! No, those salted chocolate espresso caramel brownie things, could you make those?”

Stiles revises his grocery list in his head and crosses his arms and makes his face look stern. “Okay fine, but you owe me.”

“Owe you,” Scott repeats, looking exaggeratedly sad. The small smirk on his face kind of ruins it though. “Years we’ve been friends, Stiles. Years and years and _years_.”

“And it feels longer with each passing day,” Stiles says pointedly.

Scott just smiles doofily and pushes his extra pudding cup in Stiles’s direction. Stiles snatches it. 

“Okay,” Stiles says, mouth full, “I’ll make you a deal. No bitching about anything Derek tells you to do for a month, and I’ll come over and make dinner this Saturday when Allison and her dad are coming over.”

Stiles watches as the full sentence travels its way across Scott’s face, from the dismayed _a whole month?_ to _oh shit I forgot they were coming over this weekend to my mom’s gonna be pissed_ to _wait he’s gonna make dinner, never mind_ to _oh my God, Stiles is the best friend anyone has ever had I’m going to listen to everything he says from now on and also stop forgetting to give him gas money when he drives me all over town._ That last one is more wishful thinking, but Stiles made a resolution this New Year to be more optimistic, so. 

“You’re totally on, and also awesome,” Scott says anyway, dutiful like a best friend should always be.

“Well, I guess I have known you longer,” Stiles replies.

 

(This is technically a lie. 

See, when Stiles’s mother was alive, she owned the only good restaurant in town, called The SK Café, which was a weird name but it was some inside joke between Stiles’s parents, so whatever, he let it slide.

Her specialty was coffee, and she put it in everything, pies and cupcakes and ice cream and sometimes sandwiches, inventively, and as such most of the town was overly caffeinated and business was good. Many good citizens were so overly caffeinated in fact that SK’s became a daily, very necessary part of the routine, including Derek’s aunt, a one Hannah Hale.

Hannah Hale and Stiles’s mother, whose name was Shelly, bonded over their alliterated names and doofy husbands and so for most of the year when Stiles was seven, Hannah was a fixture at the restaurant, and consequently, so were Derek and Laura. Stiles clearly remembers many afternoons when his dad would drop him off after school and the two of them would be at a table in the back, huddled together over a spread of books and notebooks, reading and scribbling down things and talking quietly. 

When Stiles’s mom got sick, Hannah came to visit once, and she brought a man that Stiles now realizes must have been Peter. Stiles doesn’t remember much about that day, actually doesn’t remember a whole lot from back then, that entire year and a half still fuzzy-edged and watery with grief. But he does remember that Hannah and Peter were very nice, and Stiles’s mother was happy to see them, and in a better mood after they left. 

Sometimes, Stiles thinks, if he could go back to that day and say something to that group of people, if he could just freeze everybody in place and say, _in two months you’ll be dead, Mom, and in two years so will you, Hannah. And in six years you’ll wake up and start murdering people, Mr. Hale, and then your nephew will murder you, and it’s probably the nicest thing that he will ever do for you, oh and also, burn in hell for what you did to him, you cold-blooded prick._ What would they say, what would their faces look like? Could it all be stopped from happening, if they’d known what was coming?

Maybe. Probably not. Stiles doesn’t like to take it that far.)

 

Derek shows up as Stiles is halfway through making Scott’s brownies – or maybe he showed up earlier, who knows, because instead of announcing his presence like a normal, well-adjusted person, he lurks in the kitchen doorway until Stiles notices him. And by ‘notices,’ he actually means, ‘shrieks like a pterodactyl and drops a pound of butter on his foot.’ Semantics.

“I just saw my life flash before my eyes,” Stiles says.

“What are you doing?” Derek frowns. Like, he actually _frowns_ the words. Stiles is kind of impressed.

“I’m…baking,” Stiles replies blankly.

“Well, yes,” Derek says, rolling his eyes. “That’s not what I meant.”

Stiles is confused. “I,” he announces, “am confused.”

Derek’s expression implies that he isn’t surprised by this. “What are you doing _home_ ,” he clarifies impatiently.

This doesn’t help. “…I live here? Right?” Stiles attempts. He looks around, checks the furniture – yup, still his house. “Wait, why are you here if you didn’t think I would be here? Oh – oh, that’s creepy. Don’t clarify if it’s creepy.”

Derek just rolls his eyes again. “I was running.”

“Running,” Stiles repeats.

“And I saw your car.”

“Uh huh.” Stiles eyes him suspiciously, then bends down to rescue his butter. “Okay.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Because it’s a stupid question,” Stiles replies.

“There are no stupid questions, only stupid answers,” Derek says unapologetically, and Stiles’s heart stops for a split second, because what the fuck, his mom used to say that.

“Uh,” he says.

“Stiles,” Derek says in his patient voice, which sounds like a normal person’s _I hate your face_ voice, “why aren’t you at lacrosse practice?”

“Oh, that,” Stiles says. “I quit the team like a month ago.”

Derek frowns again. Stiles thinks, it’s probably going to stick that way. “Why?”

Why. Why did he quit a team that chronically under-appreciated him and his mad stick-waving skills, a team which forced him to run twice as many suicides as everyone else at practice and then sit on the bench during games, which subjected him to Jackson’s pointy shoulders of doom at every turn and ate up his days until he barely had time to sleep, let alone bake things and research things and worry about things? Well. 

“Too hard,” Stiles says.

Derek snorts. “Right,” he says. He sounds skeptical.

“Want to help?” Stiles says brightly. “Espresso brownies. Yum yum.”

“I can’t cook,” Derek says. He doesn’t sound all that broken up about it.

“This isn’t cooking, it’s baking. Much easier. Plus, all you have to do is stir things.”

Derek eyes the various bowls and ingredients warily. 

“You won’t screw it up, I promise,” Stiles says.

Derek rolls his eyes and doesn’t help, but he stands closer than usual, and he watches Stiles intently. 

(Progress.

Or, actually, Stiles thinks, more like: _progress_...?)

 

Stiles and Lydia are totally friends now, a status that was achieved through a series of very delicate negotiations. Meaning, Stiles will listen to Lydia bitch about Jackson as much as she wants, and not touch her unless absolutely necessary, and in return Lydia will give Stiles unwarranted advice and call him rude names a lot and call him up at 8 AM on a Saturday and demand that he drive her to the mall because she needs a new pair of boots, _pronto._

Stiles would normally be more annoyed about this situation, due to this weird new self-esteem thing he’s been trying lately, but Lydia’s still on a dozen different medications and gets dizzy and tired whenever she’s out of bed for longer than five hours and Jackson is too busy being the most pathetic, self-involved, whiny douchebag in the history of teenagers to care, so there it is. Besides, Lydia is infinitely less bitchy when she’s freaked out, which she is constantly nowadays, due to being recently, violently traumatized. 

Stiles feels bad, is what he’s saying.

“I think Jackson slashed my tires,” Lydia says absently, holding something with tassels and strings and a huge peace sign up under her chin. Stiles suspects some kind of fetish is involved in this garment. He wisely keeps this theory to himself. “Does this make me look washed out?”

“No, your bandages make you look washed out,” Stiles says helpfully. “Also, what?”

“Shut up, my bandages are bad ass,” Lydia says. “I said Jackson slashed my tires. Again.”

“Yes, you look like a bad ass, scarred, washed out superhero, how do you know it was Jackson?”

“Superhero like comic book superhero, or like, action movie superhero? And who else could it be?”

“Action movie, definitely, definitely. Like urban cowboy Die Hard supercop, only hot and with supernatural elements. Maybe it was one of the hunters? They know you’re, you know.” Stiles waggles his eyebrows. “A ‘w’ word.”

“You mean werewolf?” Lydia says loudly, then rolls her eyes when Stiles shushes her. “Whatever dork, nobody’s around. This is Abercrombie & Fitch, hello, nobody shops here.”

“We shop here.”

“We’re being stealth.” Lydia abandons her bondage peace sign and grabs a sparkly, blue tube top. “So is this top Mission Impossible or what?”

“Pretty sure that top makes you look incredibly possible,” Stiles says critically. “Why would Jackson slash your tires? That makes no sense, he knows you never drive anywhere.”

“Because he’s a tiny insecure boy-man with the collective brain power of a tennis cleat!” Lydia exclaims, throwing the tube top at the mirror. 

Stiles takes a step backwards, slightly concerned for his safety. “Still having trouble with the mood swings, huh?”

“I hate my body!” Lydia stomps her foot and grabs her hair, then takes a deep breath. “No. Not true. My body is rockin’.”

“Yes! Yes it is. Everyone says so,” Stiles agrees, silently charting the exits. 

“The obstacle is the path,” Lydia murmurs, closing her eyes and breathing deeply. “The obstacle is the path.”

Stiles waits until she’s finished mantra-ing, then grabs the Tupperware of brownies from his bag and holds them out hopefully. 

Lydia reaches out without looking and crams half of one in her mouth. 

“Look,” Stiles says, “he’s pissed because he doesn’t feel super special anymore. That’s it – you know that’s it. He’s taking it out on us because he thinks we’re excluding him on purpose.”

“We are excluding him on purpose,” Lydia says.

“Well yeah, but only because he’s a tiny insecure boy-man,” Stiles replies.

“His issues are so tiring.” Lydia just sighs, shaking her head. “Do you think Derek should’ve given him the bite?” she asks curiously, ambling over to her pile of maybes and shaking out a tiny, blue dress with sequins along the neckline. “Also yes or no?”

“Yes,” Stiles says definitively. “And no.”

They both pause, looking at each other.

“Dress: yes,” Stiles clarifies. “Jackson: no.”

“Oh good,” Lydia says, looking relieved. “Me too.” She shakes out another dress, white this time, and thrusts it in Stiles’s face. “Well?” she demands. “Cher from Clueless. Am I right?”

“Oh my God, you totally are,” Stiles says in amazement, and Lydia’s grin is bigger than any Stiles has ever seen before.

Later, when they’re walking down the parquet and drinking lattes and making fun of what people are wearing, Lydia slips her arm through his and squeezes his elbow once.

“What?” Stiles asks, surprised. 

“What,” Lydia says. “I’m tired. And injured.”

“No you’re not, you’re an urban superhero,” Stiles says, but his insides are currently turning into soupy, fuzzy sparkles, it kind of undermines his snark a little.

Lydia smirks like she knows exactly what his insides look like and it pleases her. “When school starts, I am so telling everyone that we slept together and it was awesome,” she says.

Stiles chokes on his latte.

“Because you’re my friend,” Lydia explains happily, smiling brightly. 

“Oh?” Stiles says.

“Well, you can keep up more than one conversation at once,” Lydia says. “Allison can’t even do that, she gets all confused.”

Stiles resists the urge to fist pump and instead decides to handle this maturely.

“What a loser,” he says.

Lydia squeezes his elbow again.

 

“Have you talked to your father recently?” Derek asks, the next morning, eating an omelet that Stiles brought over in a casserole dish.

“Yes,” Stiles says patiently, “see, I live with my father. Ergo, I do talk to him quite frequently.”

“I mean about me,” Derek says.

“Why would I talk to him about you?” 

“You should tell him about me,” Derek mumbles.

Stiles stares at him in silence.

“Stiles,” Derek says, glaring, “he thinks I’m a murderer, how do you think he’ll react when he finds out you’re doing my laundry?”

“I only do your laundry because _you_ don’t do your laundry, this situation is entirely preventable,” Stiles says.

“I never said I didn’t do my own laundry,” Derek says.

“Oh yes you did.”

“No,” Derek repeats, “I didn’t. You assumed, and then started doing it for me.”

“Well, I’m doing it the right way,” Stiles insists.

“You’re deflecting.”

“No, I’m not,” Stiles says, “by the way Allison and her dad are coming over for dinner tomorrow night, so maybe don’t show up, okay?”

Derek twitches violently, then glares some more. “Still deflecting, and _what_?”

“Look, my dad and I have this very delicate balance where he finds it awkward to talk to me about his feelings and I lie to him about almost everything I do, okay, changing it now would just upset him. And yeah, they’re coming over. I’m making dinner because Mrs. McCall has to work and doesn’t have time to. Also she's an awful cook and will poison them and that would be very bad for werewolf-hunter relations.”

“You’re hosting Scott and Allison’s meet the parents dinner?” Derek asks, sounding absolutely disgusted.

Stiles doesn’t blame him, he’s a little absolutely disgusted himself. “Look, don’t rub it in, okay. Just don’t show up, property damage is something I would like to _avoid._ We just redid the kitchen wallpaper.”

“I won’t show up if you tell your dad about me,” Derek says stubbornly.

“What?” Stiles squeaks. “You’re going to blackmail me?”

“Blackmail is a strong word,” Derek says.

“You know, I would like to know if there is some sort of check or balance on your Alpha status,” Stiles protests. “Is there a werewolf council or some other governing body that I can file a complaint with? A Lycan Review Board?”

“No,” Derek says shortly. “Tell your dad or I’ll come.”

“You’re gonna come over to my house,” Stiles says incredulously, “in the middle of dinner, with my father, Scott and Allison, Scott’s mother and _Chris Argent_?”

“Chris Argent and I have an understanding, Stiles,” Derek says. “He’s not going to shoot me on sight.”

“What?! No – what? No!”

“And it’s past time for me to introduce myself to the Sheriff,” Derek says, a tiny smirk taking cover in the corner of his mouth. “Officially, when I’m not being arrested, I mean.”

“You’re an awful person,” Stiles spits.

Derek’s smirk emerges fully and he thrusts the empty casserole dish into Stiles’s chest, brushing past him on his way to the bathroom. “I’m aware.”

“I regret meeting you!” Stiles calls after him, then sighs. “Frick.”

 

_so hey daddy-o, about how much I’ve been cooking lately,_ Stiles texts.

_Are you feeding a homeless person living in our basement?_ his dad texts back.

“No, I’m feeding Derek Hale in the Super 8 off of Highway 57,” Stiles says to his steering wheel. It stares up at him in silent judgment.

_I’ve been making food for a friend. He doesn’t have a kitchen,_ he texts.

_What friend?_

_A friend you wouldn’t necessarily approve of?_

_Is he dangerous?_

Stiles considers his answer carefully. 

_He would never hurt me,_ he sends.

_Okay then,_ his dad sends back, _good talk._

Which is father-code for, “we are so not done talking, but I will surprise-attack you with this topic at some point when I detect that you are vulnerable to my dad-powers so don’t think you’re getting away with anything, you sneaky little shit.” Stiles takes a deep breath and then puts his phone away. 

Whatever, it totally counts.

 

Stiles and Lydia spend the first day back from spring break engaged in a complex game of chicken, in which they make lewd and inappropriate comments about each other’s anatomy, loudly and in highly public places. This results in most of the student body giving them both a wide berth (what Stiles suspects was Lydia’s intention from the start) and also, detention. Apparently Finstock does not have the cultural sensitivity necessary to appreciate Lydia’s expertly illustrated diagrams on the inside cover of Stiles’s textbook. (If the math thing falls through, Stiles is now confident that she has a fulfilling career in porn ahead of her. Or art. Possibly both.)

Lydia, who is evil, gets out of it by faking a fainting spell.

“Traitor,” Stiles hisses, as she’s fake-limping her way past his desk. Lydia flashes him some teeth and moans loudly.

“I think I’m having heart palpitations!” she exclaims, which prompts her freshman escorts to stare at each other in mute horror.

The only comfort is that Scott has apparently scored a detention too, for something mysterious and vague that he refuses to talk about at lunch. Stiles suspects something werewolf, and also possibly Allison, related.

“What else could it be?” Scott bemoans. “Those are the two things that pretty much rule my life.”

“That was surprisingly self-aware of you, dude,” Stiles praises. “Here, have another cookie.”

Scott snatches it out of his hand and chomps down grumpily.

Detention is with the English teacher this week, a crotchety old woman named Mrs. Heems, who stashes them in the empty classroom off the library and totters off to watch television in the A/V room with the swim coach. They consider ditching, but honestly Scott has been looking for a reason to skip practice anyway and the longer Stiles can put off going home to tackle the Leaning Tower of Dirty Dishes in his kitchen, the better.

So they crack the windows, park it in some chairs, fold up some paper footballs, and settle in. It’s kind of nice, actually.

“You’d think we’d have more issues considering how many times we’ve been almost murdered in this building,” Stiles says thoughtfully, “but actually I think I might miss it after we graduate.”

Scott looks at him like he’s insane. “Whatever you say, Stiles.”

“No seriously,” Stiles says, “think about it, Scott. This is the last time in our entire lives that we won’t have any adult responsibilities or worries. After this year, it’s all over. We’re officially grown up.”

Scott rolls his eyes. “Yeah,” he says sarcastically, “because it’s not like we’ve had to deal with any adult things lately, like serial killers or mortal, grave danger. Oh, wait.”

“Whatever,” Stiles says, waving a hand, “we’ll probably always have to deal with that. I’m just saying that at least right now, we don’t have like, normal adult things to worry about on top of all that.”

Scott gives him a measuring look, and for a second Stiles thinks he’s about to say something deep, like, _wow Stiles, you’re very mature for your age,_ or _gee, you’re right, I think I might take advantage of my fleeting youth while I have the chance,_ or _as long as our hearts are young we can face adversity with strength and dignity!_

“Dude, what are you even talking about, being an adult is going to rock,” is what he says instead, and Stiles sighs. 

“Have another cookie, Scott,” he says.

Scott makes the face he makes whenever Stiles implies that he’s being an idiot, but takes another cookie regardless. “Hey look,” he says, mouth full, “isn’t that Allison’s dad’s truck?”

Stiles looks. Sure enough, the he-man macho behemoth that Chris Argent drives is pulling up to the side parking lot by the library. “Huh,” he says, “didn’t Allison leave early today for a dentist appointment?”

“Yeah,” Scott says, confused. “She just texted me, she’s at home…” he trails off into silence as none other than Jackson Whittemore climbs out of the truck’s front seat, shouldering his backpack and knocking dirt off his shoes on the mud guard as he jumps down.

Stiles curses fiercely. 

“What the hell?” Scott asks. “What is he doing with Chris Argent?”

“Nothing good,” Stiles says, pulling out his phone.

“Stiles, he knows – he knows a lot about us,” Scott is saying anxiously. “He knows _details_.”

“Yes, I know,” Stiles says distractedly, already tapping out a rapid-fire text to Derek. 

“And he’s still pissed off Derek won’t give him the bite,” Scott says. “Wait – they know that about him. Right? They know he wants it, that means they won’t take him as seriously. Right?”

Derek’s reply is instantaneous, almost like he was waiting to hear from Stiles, which is a thought Stiles is a little wary of examining too closely at the moment. _I already know,_ is what Derek sent, which doesn’t help, even a little bit. 

Stiles snaps his phone shut in frustration. “That’s not what I’m worried about,” he says. Scott looks at him quizzically. “Dude, think about it. He wants to get back at us. The hunters want Derek. Add it up.” 

His anxiety makes his voice sound sharper than Stiles had intended, but Scott just shakes his head, looking grim. “If they go after Derek,” he says, “we’ll stop him. We’re a pack now. We can protect each other.”

“There’s four of us,” Stiles points out, fear dripping down the inside of his throat, thick and greasy. “Five, if you count Allison, which I’m not sure we can – “

“We can,” Scott says firmly.

“Okay,” Stiles agrees cautiously, “but how many of them? At least six, we know. And who knows how many more they can call and bring in at any moment.” Scott looks over at him, face pinched in apprehension.

They both fall silent, watching as Argent’s truck pulls away slowly and Jackson starts the trek back to the main parking lot, oblivious to his observers.

“Oh damn,” Scott says suddenly, “we have to make dinner for the jerk, too.”

“No, _I’m_ making dinner for the jerk,” Stiles points out - which, he volunteered, but still. 

Scott sighs helplessly. “God, just fuck our lives.” 

“Preach,” Stiles replies.


	2. Chapter 2

“This is a horrible idea that is going to end badly,” Allison declares, sneaking up behind Stiles in the kitchen with her crazy, silent, elf feet. 

“Jesus Christ,” Stiles says, heart racing. “Am I hard of hearing? Why do people keep sneaking up on me?”

“Because you’re unobservant?” Allison says, setting a bottle of sparkling cider on the counter next to the blender. “From my dad. He’s on his way from work, he’ll be here in like, twenty minutes.”

Stiles eyes it suspiciously. “Your dad works?”

“He’s been doing these training seminars at the police academy.” Allison pauses, eyes a little too wide. “On guns.”

“…oh,” Stiles says faintly.

“Stiles, my father is coming to dinner,” Allison says, voice tightly controlled. “My werewolf-hunting, automatic weapon expert father is coming to dinner with my werewolf boyfriend, and he made me go out and buy sparkling cider for it. _Stiles_.”

Stiles reaches out and pats her shoulder. “Breathe, compadre.” 

Allison props a hip against the counter, casting a cautious look towards the living room, where Stiles’s father and Scott are arguing companionably about something lacrosse-related. Lowering her voice, she leans in and says, “Scott told me.”

“Told you what,” Stiles says neutrally, because as much as he likes Allison, Chris Argent is still her father.

“About Jackson and my dad,” she says. Reaching up, she adjusts her ponytail nervously, running her fingers through the strands of hair and looking generally frazzled. “I tried to talk to him about it and he just totally froze me out. I actually – “ she breaks off and swallows. “He isn’t telling me anything. He’s – I don’t know what they’re _doing_ ,” she says, rather helplessly.

“Join the club,” Stiles says sardonically and, at a loss for what to do, shoves a block of cheese in Allison’s shaking hands. “Here. Grate.”

Allison obeys numbly, a line forming between her eyebrows as she grates viciously, apparently relieved to have a chance to metaphorically slice her aggression into easily meltable shreds. 

“We don’t know anything for sure yet,” Stiles says lowly, all too aware of his father, twenty feet away. “For all we know, he found Jackson hitchhiking or jogging or dancing at a go-go bar, and decided out of the kindness of his heart to give him a ride.”

Allison focuses intently on the cheese, hands clenched so tightly that her knuckles bloom with white. “Stiles,” she says at length, sounding more solemn than Stiles has ever heard her, “I love my father. I do. But he does not have a kind heart.” She looks up at him, expression torn. “He just…doesn’t.”

Stiles looks back at her steadily, and in that moment, he thinks they understand each other better than they ever have before. Swallowing thickly, he nods. 

“Whatever happens, he’s not going to blame you,” he says.

Allison breaks first, looking away and biting her lip. “Are you talking about Scott or my dad,” she says dully. 

Stiles just doesn’t have a response for that, so he hands her another block of cheese and nudges her encouragingly. “Grate your aggression,” he says wisely. 

Allison nods sagely, like she understands.

 

Okay, so contrary to popular (Scott's) belief, Stiles is not acually jealous of Allison, or of the Scott's relationship with her, or of the time that he spends invested in that, whether it be the hours he actually spends in her company or the countless more hours that he spends thinking/talking/worrying/complaining about her. In fact, if anything Stiles is relieved, because God knows Stiles loves the kid to death, but also: hello, shiny new free time! 

In fact, Allison and Stiles share an odd kind of kinship, brokered in the trenches of the eternal war of angst and misery that is caring about Scott McCall. It’s actually kind of nice, unexpectedly, because had anyone asked Stiles a year ago what a potential girlfriend of Scott’s might be like, he definitely wouldn’t have said “a super hot brunette with Shirley Temple dimples who can kick my ass in Katamari Damacy.” Definitely would not have pegged her as the level-headed, down to earth person that she is, either. When Stiles had imagined who Scott might date in the future, it was always kind of a Summer Roberts type: high-maintanance, a little bitchy, into pity dating, et cetera. 

At any rate, Stiles can definitely count on the fact that at any given moment, when Scott is acting like his ridiculous werewolf drama queen self, he and Allison can catch each other’s eye from across the hallway and experience a moment of shared, exasperated affection with a kindred spirit.

So Stiles is still a little wary of her from time to time, sure. He won't forget any time soon that Allison showed up at the Hale house that night with Kate and a sling full of arrows, that had things not gone down exactly the way they did, Stiles might be mourning his best friend right now instead of cooking dinner for him. That she'd left Derek in that cellar. That her family wants both of them dead.

As much faith as Scott has in her, and as much as Stiles likes her and values her friendship, Scott comes first. That's always been Stiles's bottom line.

But he also can't forget the way Scott was pre-werewolf: how he never liked to get his picture taken because he hated the way he looked, how he wouldn't speak up in class because he thought he didn't have anything worthwhile to say, how he'd say these awful things about himself so casually, like it was just established fact. How no matter how hard Stiles tried, he could never really see the good in himself or any worth at all, really, in the things that he contributed to the world. 

It used to drive Stiles crazy because for all his faults, there's a reason he's stuck by Scott and there's a reason why Stiles will continue to do ridiculous, life-threatening things for him. It's because he's kind and generous, and he takes really good care of his mom and he still sends his dad Christmas cards even though the jerk hasn't even called him in like, three years. It's because he will give money to homeless people without even thinking about it and he loves animals and he's incredibly smart, but in ways that just don't translate well into good grades. It's because when Stiles's mom died, he sat in Stiles's room for three full days while Stiles stared at the ceiling and tried to disappear, and he didn't make Stiles talk or eat or anything, he just sat there, and did his homework and read quietly, and just - didn't leave. 

Stiles knows that's who Scott is, that that's what Scott's heart is. And what cinched it for Stiles about Allison, really, is that he thinks that Scott is starting to see that for the first time, that he's beginning to recognize all that goodness he has to offer. And if his self-worth is still a little too tied up in how many goals he makes in lacrosse or how popular he thinks he is or should be, well, whatever. It's a process.

(Here's all of it said much simpler: Allison makes Scott happy. How, Stiles wonders, could he possibly be jealous of that?)

 

By the time Chris Argent arrives, seconds behind Melissa McCall, Stiles, his dad, Scott and Allison have the table set and the cider poured, with the good serving dishes, the blue, stone ones, overflowing with green chorizo and rice, stuffed bell peppers and thick, whole grain bread, slathered with honey butter. The smell is enough to distract everyone from the awkward business of how certain people in the room want to kill each other. Because seriously, Stiles isn’t just tooting his own horn here, he makes really great chorizo.

Scott’s mom looks particularly awed and keeps shooting Stiles incredulous looks. He can’t tell if she’s impressed by his culinary talents or pissed off this is the first she’s hearing about it.

“God, I haven’t had green chorizo in forever,” she says. “Since – well…”

“Since Shelly was alive,” Stiles’s dad finishes for her smoothly, in the amiable small town Sheriff manner that has smoothed over this same awkward moment a million times. “Yep, Stiles has been cooking a lot of her old recipes lately.” Then he grins the grin of truly evil-hearted fathers everywhere. “It’s almost like he’s been trying to impress someone.”

Stiles groans. “Dad, you’re embarrassing yourself.”

“Stiles is trying to impress somebody?” Allison asks. “Stiles, are you trying to impress somebody?”

“Not even a little bit,” Stiles says.

“I don’t know, I think maybe he is,” the Sheriff says innocently. Mrs. McCall, who has a blackened heart, cackles in delight.

“Could it be somebody who doesn’t technically have a kitchen?” Allison continues, eyes sparkling. Next to her, Scott frowns in confusion.

“Wait,” he says, “who are we talking about?”

“Nobody,” Stiles says, “shut up, all of you, immediately, we’re not talking about this.”

“Dude, do you have a crush on someone?” Scott asks incredulously, finally catching up. The Sheriff snorts loudly.

Allison shakes her head. “It’s okay, Scott,” she says, patting his arm with the air of long-suffering girlfriends everywhere. Stiles rolls his eyes and tries to pretend his face isn’t bright, embarrassing, teenager-blush red. 

And Stiles says, “ungrateful cretins, all of you,” and then Allison goes, “we’re totally grateful cretins, don’t lie,” and Scott asks, “what’s a cretin? It sounds like some kind of shellfish,” and Mrs. McCall snorts and says “oh, kid,” and Stiles’s dad shakes his head at all of them like he can’t believe they’re all this weird and still exist.

And Argent just kind of...sits there.

It’s actually kind of a downer really, because all bizarreness aside, it’s actually kind of a nice dinner, what with Scott and Allison being sickening and cute and Mrs. McCall and the Sheriff gossiping like old ladies, and Stiles just sitting there, reveling in the fact that he’s gotten this far into the evening without property damage. 

Scott and Stiles’s dad have always gotten along pretty well (wherein ‘pretty well’ means: ‘they bonded three years ago over a shared love for the Animaniacs and now that’s all they talk about’) so they mostly hold the court, with Allison jumping in every now again with a comment about breaking the fourth wall or how Dot was obviously a feminist.

“Not every girl that can beat up a guy is a feminist,” Scott tells her, through narrowed eyes.

“I’m a girl and I beat up guys and I’m a feminist,” Allison replies.

“I like you,” Mrs. McCall says happily, waving her fork in their direction, “Isn’t she great? God, you’re so great.” 

Allison beams, and Argent twitches, silently.

Stiles’s dad and Allison are in a heated debate about the Pirates of Penzance episode and Mrs. McCall is having inappropriate relations with her bell pepper and Stiles thinks they might just make it through all of this unscathed, which is of course when Argent says, apropos of nothing, “so Sheriff, I guess you finally nipped those animal attacks in the bud, huh?” Awkward silence falls.

Stiles looks at his dad, who looks back at him with this look on his face like, _you see what happens when I let you decide the guest list?_ Stiles doesn’t even blame him.

“Real mysterious stuff,” the Sheriff deadpans. “Seems to be over with now, though. Lucky, lucky us.”

Argent frowns. Stiles can’t tell if it’s a disgruntled hunter frown or just a normal, _my elected official is making fun of me_ frown. “Did you ever figure out what was going on?” he asks, folding his hands over his plate. Stiles narrows his eyes at the elbows on his tablecloth.

“Well,” Stiles’s dad says, “not really. But we had all of these bear traps set up around the highways,” he pauses, eyes wide for dramatic effect, “so when the attacks stopped, we just figured we scared it off.”

Allison makes a muffled noise and covers her mouth with her hand. 

“We also had a couple deputies who would walk around the neighborhoods at night, hitting two big sticks together,” his dad continues. “See, I read in a magazine that animals don’t like loud noises.”

“Real smart of you,” Argent says through clenched teeth. Stiles’s dad smiles at him beatifically, and Stiles buries his face in his plate, swearing to himself fiercely to buy him the biggest Father’s Day present in the entire universe. Ever.

“Anyway, I’d rather hear about Allison’s art show,” his dad says pleasantly, “Scott said you won some sort of prize?”

Allison casts a wary glance at her father, but then looks back at the Sheriff with a starry gaze of adoration, not unlike Scott’s. “Um,” she says, “yeah, I - it wasn’t that big of a deal. Just a school thing.”

“She won first place,” Scott translates, unafraid of bragging. “And her portrait is going to be displayed at the art center in Trusdale for the rest of the school year.”

“Oh, you mean that huge museum that hundreds of people walk through every day?” Stiles asks obediently. 

“Yes, that’s exactly the one I mean, Stiles,” Scott replies, grinning hugely.

“Oh my God, shut up,” Allison says, glaring at them both.

Stiles wrinkles his nose at her. “Are you blushing?”

“No,” Allison snaps. “Shut up. Stop looking at my face.”

Mrs. McCall laughs. “All three of you are ridiculous,” she says. “Especially you, Scott.”

“ _Hey_ ,” Scott says. Allison laughs at him.

“What was your picture of?” Mrs. McCall asks, ignoring him. “Because you know, Scott and I drive up to Trusdale to visit my aunt every once in awhile - we might have to make a pit stop to take a look.”

Allison shrugs bashfully. “It was just a project for class.” She darts a glance over at her father, then juts her chin out. “It was of a wolf.”

Argent slams his water glass down on the table with a muffled ‘thump.’ Allison doesn’t look over.

“I’m really proud of it,” Allison says confidently. Stiles watches Argent’s expression tighten with a nervous kind of awe, sort of halfway between _what the hell is she doing_ and _damn, she’s got some balls._

Mrs. McCall just glances between the two Argents and a cringing Scott, frowning with the air of a woman who knows she’s missing something. Again.

“I’m sure it’s fantastic,” Stiles’s dad says without taking his eyes off of Argent, his brow furrowed and mouth creased. 

Argent mutters something.

“What?” the Sheriff says sharply.

Argent shoots him a dark glance. “My daughter is very talented,” he says, twisting the words so that they sound mean, like an insult. “She has a lot of potential. Potential that I’m going to make sure she doesn’t waste.” He punctuates this with a pointed stare at Scott, who immediately ducks his head down, looking like he wants to dig a hole beneath his chair and hide there.

Mrs. McCall looks over at Argent like he’s something she just scraped out of somebody’s colon. “Allison’s a very smart girl, Mr. Argent,” she says sharply. Stiles half expects her to break out some fang. “I’m sure she won’t waste anything.”

Argent doesn’t reply, just stares into the middle distance, glaring at nothing. 

“So,” Stiles says brightly, after the silence has long since stretched out into tense and uncomfortable, “is anyone up for ice cream?”

 

“So, that went well,” Stiles comments.

Scott looks at him incredulously, holding a carton of rocky road frozen in mid-air between freezer and counter. “He almost jumped out of his seat and attacked me, Stiles,” he exclaims.

“He _almost_ did,” Stiles says, “but he didn’t. Thus, it went well.”

“Well, he’s not going to kill me with the Sheriff sitting right there,” Scott grumbles.

“Yes, that is true, now you see why it was a good idea to do this here?” Stiles says. “Don’t forget the chocolate syrup.”

Scott turns back to the cupboard and snags a bottle of Hershey’s, still fretting visibly. Stiles sighs.

“Look, what were you expecting? You know Allison already knew what her dad thinks about you, being confronted with it isn’t going to change anything. Plus, she totally stood up for you in there! Is her portrait really of a wolf?”

“Kind of,” Scott says shyly. “It’s sort of an abstract thing. She told me it’s me when I’m - you know. Hulked out.”

“Dude,” Stiles says, holding his fist out. Scott bumps it with a small grin.

“I just keep worrying that there’s going to be a line, eventually,” Scott says. “That one day, something will be too much and she’ll just give up on all this. On me.”

“Dude,” Stiles says again, sadly.

“It’s like, how much can you ask of somebody? It’s bad enough that I’m dorky and say stupid things to her and that I’m not that smart, but also that I turn into a - “

“Spaz!” Stiles says quickly. “You turn into a spaz. Nothing else.”

Mrs. McCall pokes her head into the kitchen, arms full of dirty dishes. She rolls her eyes and shoots Stiles a look. “Okay,” she says. “Whatever you two are talking about, I don’t want to know.”

“Hey, Mom,” Scott says nervously. “Sorry about that - in there. Um.”

“Oh, honey,” she says, stacking the dishes by the sink, “you don’t have to apologize. It’s not your fault Allison’s dad is a huge dick.”

Scott snorts. “Uh, thanks.”

“You know, your father’s parents never liked me either,” she says musingly, propping her hands on her hips. “Of course, what did they know, they still think he doesn’t call them because he’s too busy.” She scoffs.

Stiles exchanges a look with Scott, who looks torn between amusement and discomfort. A familiar look for him. 

“Yeah, Mr. Argent’s a bit of a hard ass,” Stiles says. “But you know, as I was just telling your son, it doesn’t matter anyway since Allison thinks he’s the bomb.”

“Oh yeah,” Mrs. McCall agrees, “that girl is totally into you.”

Scott shifts uncomfortably. “Could we not discuss this with my mother, Stiles?” he asks.

“Why, are you embarrassed?” Mrs. McCall asks. “Is it embarrassing for your mother to tell you that you’ve totally got it going on?”

Stiles cracks up. 

“Mom, oh my God,” Scott says, pained.

“Okay, I’m leaving,” Mrs. McCall says, kissing Scott’s temple with a loud, wet smack. “But I’m taking the ice cream.”

“Take it all,” Scott says, pushing her away. Stiles keeps laughing at him. “Shut up, dude.”

Stiles shakes his head. “You see, your mother agrees with me. It’s because we’re both smart.”

“Whatever,” Scott grumbles, but he’s totally blushing. Stiles is going to go ahead and count this as a win. 

 

Due to the rules and laws that govern Stiles’s life thus far, he should’ve expected that at some point over the course of this ill-fated evening, he would end up alone with Christopher Argent, Professional Psychotic. He did not expect it to happen, however, in the bathroom.

“Uh,” Stiles says, mid-hand washing, “didn’t I lock the door?”

Argent just crosses his arms and looks superior. “You’ve got a nice looking place here, Stiles,” he says, all horror-movie casual, leaning against the wall in a way that reminds Stiles of Allison, which is just - super creepy.

“Wow, great, thank you,” Stiles babbles, “so nice to see you’ve mastered being polite and invasive at the same time.”

Argent smirks at him. “Just thought you and I could have a little chat,” he says, and pulls the shower curtain aside, peering inside the shower like he’s at a freaking department store or something, and not rifling through Stiles’s collection of half-empty body wash bottles. “Relax, I don’t _bite_.”

“Funny,” Stiles says flatly. “Is there a reason this chat couldn’t happen in public?”

“Are you afraid of me?” Argent asks, looking like he’s actually curious about the answer.

“Nah,” Stiles replies, “it’s perfectly normal for hardcore, gun-nut werewolf hunters to corner me in small spaces. Happens all the time, no big.”

Argent laughs. “You know, I like you, Stiles,” he says. “You’re definitely one of a kind.”

“So glad I’ve won your approval,” Stiles says bitingly, unable to resist.

Argent doesn’t seem fazed. “Not a lot of kids your age could handle what you’ve managed to handle,” he says. “Not without getting themselves killed, anyway. But not only did you handle it, but now you’re...cooking dinner for it.” Argent whistles lowly. “It’s pretty impressive, I have to admit.”

Stiles crosses his arms across his chest, mimicking Argent’s pose, and puts on his best bitchface. “As much as I love condescending, backhanded compliments, do you have an actual point, or are you just being needlessly creepy?”

Argent smiles a very ugly smile. “Just thought you and I could exchange some information,” he says. “You being such a sensible young man and all.”

“Really.”

“Really.” Argent twists his face into something resembling innocent inquiry. “There’s no reason why you and I can’t come to an understanding, us both being so sensible.”

“Yes, you seemed very reasonable four months ago when you threatened me at gunpoint,” Stiles says, rolling his eyes.

Argent makes a dismissive noise. “Arrowpoint,” he corrects.

“My mistake,” Stiles snaps. “And since we’re talking so reasonably, what makes you so reasonably sure that I’d want to do anything to help you? Considering how much you _reasonably_ want basically everyone I care about dead.”

“I’m not a monster,” Argent says, with the first sign of irritation since this insane conversation started. “I don’t murder people just for the hell of it.”

“Oh right, I must’ve had you mixed up with your sister,” Stiles says, and watches that bullet hit home with great satisfaction.

“Maybe I overestimated you,” Argent says, scowling now.

“Maybe you did,” Stiles says, “or maybe you thought I was a stupid kid who got lucky and that you could just waltz in here and manipulate me into giving you something that you want. Or maybe you just really liked my chorizo. Who knows.” Stiles shrugs. “What you should know is that I’m not stupid, and I’m not nearly as oblivious as you seem to think I am.”

Argent just raises an eyebrow, as if to say, _oh really, small child_? Stiles resents that eyebrow. He resents that eyebrow a lot. 

“You think Jackson’s going to give you Derek,” he says, mustering up a smirk of his own. “He isn’t.”

Argent’s face goes eerily blank.

“Let me guess!” Stiles taps his chin exaggeratedly. “He told you Derek threatened him, or something. Maybe that he changed his mind about wanting the bite, and that Derek’s stalking him or harassing him or calling him rude names or something, and he said, ‘why golly gee, Mr. Argent, I’ll set him up for you if you can protect my skinny white jail bait ass, yes sirree,’ am I getting close? Yeah? Warm or hot?”

Argent just shakes his head. “Quite the imagination you have,” he says neutrally, but oh, Stiles has him. Stiles so totally has him.

“Let me fill you in on a little secret,” Stiles says gleefully, “since we’re sharing information. Jackson is _lying_ to you. Okay? He wants the bite, oh _man_ does he want the bite, and since Derek won’t give it to him, he’s acting like the spoiled brat he is and trying to find another way to go about it. The end, no take backs, do not pass Go.”

“Even if that is what’s going on,” Argent smirks meanly, “and I’m not saying that it is, that wouldn’t change the fact that he’s a young man who needs to be protected. I won’t allow him to be turned, Stiles.”

“Neither will Derek,” Stiles says flatly. “Do you honestly think that he’s going to give some sixteen-year-old the bite? A sixteen-year-old whose judgment has been severely compromised? Looking after Scott and Lydia and me, that’s one thing, but Jackson? No way.”

“And you expect me to take that on faith,” Argent drawls. “Faith in Derek Hale.”

“Yes, Derek Hale,” Stiles snaps angrily, “Derek Hale whose entire family was murdered by your psycho pedophile big sister. I assume you know how old he was when all that happened, but if you need help with the math I’d be happy to spell it out for you.”

Argent makes an aborted move forward, face twisted in anger, his calm finally broken.

“Oh, go ahead and hit me,” Stiles says, laughing. “ _Please_ hit me. Give me one reason to have you arrested, you utter and complete dick.”

Argent takes a sharp breath, turning his face away. When he turns back, his face is calm again, but his fists are clenched at his sides, his entire frame rigid with tension.

“I’m leaving,” he says, “and I’m taking my daughter with me. And I think you’ll find that pissing me off is not the smartest choice to make, Mr. Stilinski.”

“And I think you’ll find that your moral high ground is getting smaller by the minute,” Stiles shoots back. “Why don’t you ask Allison what she thinks. Maybe she can help clear things up for you.”

Argent glares, visibly refusing to rise to the bait. He also slams the door when he leaves, and Stiles’s dad’s towel rack clatters to the floor. Asshole.

 

“So,” the Sheriff says.

Stiles has attempted to sneak upstairs without being caught in this exact situation, but alas his father has wily ways and is waiting for him outside of his room. This is why parents shouldn’t be smart.

“So, nice dinner,” Stiles says. “Did you need help with the dishes? May I remind you of the ‘he who doesn’t help cook loads’ house rule?”

“Scott and his mother are doing them,” the Sheriff says pleasantly. “Allison wanted to help, but her dad pulled her out of here like a crazed bat out of hell.”

“Oh,” Stiles says, “yeah. That Chris Argent, he’s a crazy...bat.”

“I know you wanted to say ‘asshole,’” his father says generously. “And you’d be right; he is a total asshole.”

“I know, right?” Stiles says. “God, you and me Pops, we’re like - “ he gestures a little maniacally. “Like this. Wavelength-y.”

“Oh sure,” the Sheriff says, “so you wanna wavelength with me about the argument you had with him in the bathroom?”

Stiles smiles hopefully. “No?”

“Stiles.”

“Okay, okay, well.” Stiles considers his options. “I - Dad, I don’t want to lie to you.”

The Sheriff frowns deeply. “Well, that’s not a great start.”

Stiles wrings his hands nervously - like he’s actually wringing,that’s how not on this situation is. Stiles is willing to admit he has a slightly nervous personality, but he’s never _wringed_ before.

“It’s just - I don’t want to lie to you but I also don’t want to tell you the truth - not because I’m trying to get away with something! No getting away, of any kind, other than what’s necessary, and I mean maybe sometimes I’m not actually getting gas when I’m running late on curfew but I’m pretty sure you knew that already and anyway I think we’re talking about something a little more serious than twenty minutes curfew overtime here if - “

“Stiles.”

Stiles makes a face. “Well jeez, Dad, you’re doing cop-face, it’s making me nervous.”

“Of course I’m doing cop-face, my teenage son just had a nasty fight with a crazy bat-asshole in my bathroom,” the Sheriff says exasperatedly. “You do know that Chris Argent does, right? He sells _guns_. We call him Lord of War down at the station.”

“Wow, current reference, very impressive,” Stiles says. 

“Are you sassing me?” his dad replies. “Don’t sass me. Because I will sass you right back, and I’m much older than you are, I will win.”

“What do you want me to say?” Stiles asks, as seriously as he can muster up the strength to be. “What do you want me to tell you, Dad? Yes, there’s something weird going on. No, I can’t tell you. Yes, I want to. But I’m not going to, and there’s nothing you can do to change my mind.”

“Why?” the Sheriff demands.

“Because - I can’t.” Stiles spreads his hands out helplessly. “I can’t, Dad. I’m not asking you to understand, but understand that I can’t.”

The Sheriff runs one big hand over his face, collapsing against the wall. He looks very old. “Jesus, kid. I don’t even know what to do with you.”

“I know,” Stiles says sympathetically.

“Are you in danger?” his dad asks sternly.

Stiles opens and closes his mouth impotently. “...no,” he says.

“You hesitated,” his dad exclaims, “why is there hesitating?!”

“Because it’s a complicated question!”

“No, it fucking _isn’t_!”

“Swear jar! Swear jar!”

“Stiles, I swear to God I am this close to handcuffing you,” the Sheriff says, a little hysterically, “ _to my wrist_ , and I will never let you out of my sight, ever again. Ever!”

“Dad,” Stiles says evenly, in the same tone of voice he uses with Scott on the full moon, “currently I am in no mortal peril or danger. Okay?”

“Currently,” his father says critically.

Stiles takes a deep breath. “I’m not going to get hurt. Okay? Trust me.”

“Stiles,” his dad says, shaking his head, “don’t make me - don’t - “

“Hey. Dad, hey,” Stiles says, reaching out a hand, “I won’t. I won’t.”

The Sheriff says nothing, just reaches out and grabs Stiles’s shoulder once, in a solid grip. Stiles leans into it gratefully.

“Listen, I know that feelings give you hives,” Stiles says, through a lump in his throat the size of Canada, “but I love you and I’m really grateful you’re my dad.”

His dad swallows a few times, looking like he either wants to run away or lock Stiles in a closet forever and never let him out. Probably both. 

“And I want you to know that I can handle myself, that I can protect myself, and that the second - the _microsecond_ that I feel like it’s okay to tell you everything I will. Is there something smaller than a microsecond?”

“Nanosecond,” his father murmurs with a faint smile.

“Right. Nanosecond. Swear.”

“I don’t like this,” says the Sheriff.

“I know,” Stiles says.

“I mean, I _really_ don’t like this.”

“I know.”

“And you’re grounded,” the Sheriff says, pushing him away, in the direction of his bedroom. “Just because.”

“I know,” Stiles says sadly.

 

The next morning, Stiles is halfway to school when his phone goes off. It’s a text from his dad.

 _Drugs?_ it says.

 _No,_ Stiles texts back, _duh._

_Religious cult?_

_No._

_Any type of cult?_

Stiles laughs helplessly, leaning his head against his car window.

 _dad i’m reconsidering my stance on your addiction to lifetime movies,_ he sends. 

He doesn’t get a reply until about an hour later, in the middle of his first class. 

_Just trying to think of something that you couldn’t tell me about_ , it says, and Stiles has to just sit and breathe for a minute, fuck. 

_I’m sorry_ , Stiles sends, beneath his desk, and his dad sends back a series of the incomprehensible emoticons that he’s been using in his texts lately. Stiles suspects the new receptionist at the cop shop, she looks like the emoticon type. She listens to Mariah Carey at her desk, for pete’s sake.

 _I think we might text too much_ , Stiles writes.

 _what else are you going to do in class_ , his dad sends back, and Stiles laughs out loud in the middle of chemistry, feeling much better about his life all of a sudden, in a general sense.


	3. Chapter 3

“So, how’d it go,” Derek says, rather than asks, leaning against Stiles’s Jeep in the parking lot like he isn’t on the high school security guard’s ‘dangerous people that need to be chased away with a fake gun’ list. “I assume nobody died.”

“Nope, no dying,” Stiles says. “Some trauma, of course, but I did make sausage.”

If anything, Derek looks angrier about that, and Stiles rolls his eyes. “Relax, I saved you some.”

Derek crosses his arms, looking stern. “What did Argent say to you?”

“He didn’t say anything to me,” Stiles says, a little too quickly.

Derek just keeps standing there with his arms crossed, but he looks a little more smug than he did before.

“Oh, fine,” Stiles says, “just you know, the usual. ‘Blah blah, I’m intimidating, blah blah, werewolves are bad.’ Boring, really.”

“Did he threaten you?” Derek asks, his eyebrows pulling together, fists clenching minutely in the elbows of his jacket. 

“Uh,” Stiles says.

Derek raises an eyebrow.

“No?”

“You don’t sound too sure about that,” Derek says tensely.

“We had a tiny, tiny argument,” Stiles says cautiously. “There was some threatening language involved. But. Uh - “ Stiles stops, wanting to come up with something to make the whole thing sound less than what it is, but apparently he just doesn’t have it in him to defend Christopher Argent.

Derek waits patiently.

“Okay, well I’m fine,” Stiles finally says shrugging. “You know me, I bounce back. Like a bouncy thing.”

Derek gives him a critical once-over, as if he’s trying to determine exactly which parts of Stiles are bouncy and what exactly that means in terms of physical reality, anyway. “What did you say to _him_?” he asks, frowning at Stiles’s left leg. 

“Absolutely nothing,” Stiles says confidently.

Derek looks unimpressed. “So he didn’t say anything to you, and you didn’t say anything to him.”

“Right.”

“So I guess the panicked voicemail I got from Allison was because of...” Derek cocks his head. Like a parrot. An angry parrot. “The sausage?”

“Allison left you a voicemail?” Stiles asks. “Wait - Allison _has your phone number_?”

“She was worried about you,” Derek says, seemingly unaware of how freaked out Stiles currently is by the idea of he and Allison talking on the phone on any kind of regular basis. “Maybe because you taunted her father, who has a concealed carry license.” 

“‘Taunt’ isn’t the word I’d use,” Stiles says. “Confront, maybe. Sternly discuss.”

“Maybe we should sternly discuss why you shouldn’t provoke men who own lots of guns,” Derek says.

“You know, I’ve been getting that lecture from my dad since I was ten and it hasn’t caught on yet,” Stiles points out. “May I also remind you that I can and will cut off your food privileges at any time. Dude.”

“Don’t call me dude,” Derek says sourly, and opens the door to the passenger’s side of Stiles’s Jeep with one sharp jerk of his arm. “Get in.”

“How did you - didn’t I lock that?” Derek holds up Stiles’s keys wordlessly. “What?! How - “

“Get _in_ ,” Derek repeats, unrepentantly.

Stiles huffs. “Don’t think you can just order me around like this all the time buddy, and pickpocketing my car keys, really? I’m really starting to wonder about your time in the big city you know, because out here in the boondocks that’s called a _crime_.”

“I notice that you are in the car, regardless,” Derek points out, and slams the door shut. Stiles scowls at him through the window and puts his seat belt on.

“I couldn’t drive, at least?” Stiles grouses, watching resentfully as Derek slides into the driver’s seat with his stupid werewolf grace and turns the ignition. “My car. In case you needed a reminder.”

“Nope,” Derek says, “I’m aware.”

Stiles crosses his arms, momentarily stymied. “Well,” he says, for lack of anything else, “ _good_.”

Derek frowns at the steering wheel. “How fast does this thing go?”

“Oh no,” Stiles says, “no no no, this is not the Camaro and you are not breaking the sound barrier just because you’re a freaking impatient roadhog.”

“So,” Derek replies, “not that fast?”

“It drives perfectly normal speeds that perfectly normal people feel safe driving,” Stiles snaps.

Derek snorts and peals out of the parking lot. Both the tires and Stiles squeal in protest.

“Seems to go pretty fast actually,” Derek comments.

“You need medication!” Stiles yelps.

Derek ignores him, but Stiles thinks he sees a hint of something that may possibly be a smile. (A real one, too, which Stiles had previously thought was entirely mythical, like Bigfoot or a comfortable way to wear turtlenecks.)

“So where are we going?” Stiles asks, once he is reasonably sure that they are not in the middle of a high-speed police chase or running from an evil werewolf or anything else that would require going ninety in a school lane. “Mexico? Hell? What?”

“I want to show you something,” Derek says.

“Is it something creepy?”

Derek pauses. “You think everything is creepy.”

“I do not,” Stiles protests. “It’s just - there are a lot of creepy things associated with you. You’re a creepy guy.”

Derek frowns at him over the gear shift. “And yet,” he says meaningfully, and lets that hang.

Stiles swallows thickly. “Okay fine, you can tell me if it’s creepy. I’m getting used to creepy anyway, I guess.”

Derek huffs and stretches out, wiggling his hips in the way you do when you want to adjust how you’re sitting while you’re driving without hitting a telephone pole. Stiles watches, and instantly experiences a nuclear explosion inside of his head. 

“...yesterday,” Derek says.

“Um,” Stiles replies, “what?”

Derek shoots him a suspicious look and Stiles attempts to convey that no, of course he wasn’t staring anyone’s crotch, that’s ridiculous, just with his facial expression. 

“I said that I talked to Jackson yesterday,” Derek says, sounding irritated. “Do you want to know what happened or do you want to keep daydreaming?”

“I think I want to know what happened,” Stiles says blandly, nobly not rising to the bait.

Derek looks over at him, eyes narrowed, and takes a sharp curve that sends Stiles rocketing into the window.

“Son of a bitch!” Stiles yells.

“So I talked to Jackson,” Derek says nonchalantly.

“Hate you,” Stiles replies.

“And he told me he’d stay away from the Argents from now on.”

Stiles rubs the side of his head and grimaces. “And you believed him?”

“Of course not,” Derek replies. “But he seemed...a little unstable.”

Stiles snorts loudly. “You mean like Chris Argent _seems_ like an asshole? Play it again, Sam.”

Derek just rolls his eyes, managing to look disdainful without even taking his eyes off the road. "I'm not sure if you're _aware,_ Stiles," he says, "but there isn't a whole hell of a lot I can do if he wants to get himself killed."

"You could stop him from, you know, doing that," Stiles points out.

"He's human," Derek says.

"So am I."

"That's different."

"How?"

"It just." Derek turns and glares at him. "It just is."

Stiles raises his eyebrows. "You'll protect me but you won't protect Jackson?"

"You at least have the brains to help me out with the job," Derek snaps.

Stiles opens his mouth, then closes it again. And then, inevitably, opens it again. "Hold up, did you just compliment me?" 

"No," Derek says sharply, swerving abruptly to change lanes and sending Stiles careening towards the window again. "If it came off that way, it was unintentional, trust me."

Stiles just crosses his arms and grins.

"Besides, it's not a matter of _won't,_ it's a matter of _can't,_ " Derek says irritably.

"Are you serious?" Stiles asks incredulously. "You _can't?_ Did I dream the last four months where you're the super strongest best werewolf ever?" He pauses. "Even with your _control issues_ \- oh, don't look at me like that, like I don't know that you're the one who keeps scratching up my back porch. There are plenty of trees in this town for you to use as scratching posts on full moons, you know. Just saying."

"Your confidence in me is inspiring," Derek says dryly.

"You really don't feel any responsibility for him," Stiles asks flatly. "At all?"

Derek shoots him a look. "Do you?" he asks challengingly.

Stiles sighs loudly, turning away, instead of replying.

"What would you have me do, give him the bite?" Derek asks, sounding infuriatingly logical. "Turn him into even more of a dangerous liability than he already is? Not to mention break the truce with the Argents."

"If you don't," Stiles points out, "then he'll probably find someone who will. And something tells me that other Alphas won't be as discerning - or understanding - as you are."

"You think he'd go that far?"

"Believe me," Stiles says darkly, "I've known Jackson since we were in first grade. He is so spoiled beyond spoiled that he probably thinks that it's his _right_. He thinks about the things he wants as if they're inevitable outcomes, not possibilities."

Derek drives in silence for a moment before turning off onto a side road, one Stiles instantly recognizes as the one that leads to the old Hale house. "You're right," he says quietly. "So we're damned if we do and damned if we don't."

"What else is new?" Stiles mutters.

"Who would he listen to?" Derek asks. "Lydia?"

"They're fighting," Stiles says dismissively. "Plus Lydia doesn't want to talk to him."

Derek frowns. "Yes, and we should all bow down to what Lydia wants," he says pissily.

"Oh my God, really?" Stiles exclaims. "Do we need to have the 'she almost died' talk again?"

"I know she almost died, Stiles," Derek drawls. "I was there."

"Actually you were chained up in a cellar," Stiles corrects. Derek shoots him a withering look. "But I concede the point. Speaking of that particular cellar, why the hell are we going to your old house?"

"Because I want to show you something," Derek says, in the same tone as before, the _I only have patience because of my supernatural powers since you obviously would have driven me insane by now otherwise_ tone.

"Uh huh," Stiles says suspiciously, noting with no small amount of wariness that they're driving around the back way, taking the roads that will lead them around the edge of the property instead of right up to the house itself. "Did those cream cheese espresso muffins really taste that bad? I told you it was an experiment."

"They were disgusting," Derek says bluntly. "Also I'm not going to kill you. Quit fretting."

"I do not _fret,_ " Stiles says, offended. "And it is a perfectly legitimate fear, thank you very much. Mr. Alpha."

The house comes into view, its charred roof cutting the horizon in half like a dark block of coal, making the greenery of the surrounding forest look welcoming and safe in comparison. Stiles shivers. They're too far away to see the yard, where Peter was killed, but his eyes are drawn to that direction regardless. He really hates this place.

Derek pulls the car off the road and into an shady spot, the Jeep's well-worn tires taking them off the gravel and into the forest proper with ease. "Are we done with the routine?" he snaps, an extra bite in his voice that wasn't present before. "I'm _not_ going to hurt you. For Christ's sake."

Stiles pauses, taken aback. "Do werewolves believe in God?" he blurts, stupidly. "Because I think saying 'for Christ's sake' implies that you believe in Christ, in order to implore someone else to do something for his sake - "

"Stiles."

"Right." Stiles swallows. "Okay, I'll stop. I know. It's just - I ramble. That's all."

"Thank you." Derek takes a long breath and climbs out of the car. After a moment's consideration, Stiles follows.

"So, not to beat a dead werewolf or anything, morbid pun intended, but I'd really like to know why we're here," Stiles says, following Derek's lazy path through the underbrush. 

"Really," Derek says flatly, "I hadn't picked up on that."

"You do realize that my head might actually explode. Like we are legitimately treading into dangerous levels of curiosity here."

Derek stops and is suddenly facing Stiles, in that creepy super-fast way that still freaks the hell out of Scott, which never fails to be hilarious. But, Stiles concedes, catching in breath in a gasp, it is a bit startling. 

"Can you climb?" Derek asks. 

"Um," says Stiles.

Derek impatiently motions towards a gnarled looking tree, with low hanging, thick branches and less foliage than the others. 

"I'll go behind you, so you don't fall," Derek says.

Stiles blinks, then gives a mental shrug. "Since I'm living in the moment," he says by way of an answer. Derek nods approvingly. 

It's actually a perfect tree for climbing, which is probably why Derek chose it, with lots of handholds and evenly spaced places for Stiles to put his feet. There's a shaky moment when Stiles loses his grip and starts to fall backwards, but Derek is there, with a firm hand on his back and a knee for Stiles to grab. He perches on the branches like he was born there, which is just the stupidly graceful, ridiculous kind of thing that Derek is always good at, the asshole.

"Aren't trees and dogs kind of natural enemies?" Stiles pants out, finally pulling himself up to a steady-seeming branch, clutching the trunk for dear life. Derek swings up next to him, not even out of breath.

"I am not a _dog,_ " he says irritably, rolling his shoulders as if to work the creaks out of them, settling onto the branch with quick, nimble efficiency. 

"You are way closer to a dog than you are a cat," Stiles says reasonably. "Or a monkey. Or bird. Or other kind of - tree perching creature."

Derek tilts his head. "I grew up in these woods," is all he says. And well, Stiles doesn't quite have the heart to keep that thread of conversation going after that. 

"So," he says instead, "we're here. In a tree." He looks around. "Okay. Interesting. Things look...smaller. Very enlightening, thank you for showing me."

Derek nudges him with a sharp elbow. "Look at the house, idiot," he says, and Stiles does. "They're tearing it down today."

Sure enough, up here above the treeline Stiles can see the long metal arm of a crane, and the distant voices of workers floating towards them on the breeze. 

"Oh," Stiles says stupidly, looking over at Derek for a reaction. But he just looks back at Stiles, conspicuously reaction...less. "And that doesn't...bother you?"

Derek raises an eyebrow. "You think it should?"

"No. I mean yes. I mean," Stiles rambles, "you should feel about it however you, uh, feel about it, and that's okay with me?"

"I'm glad," Derek says, looking amused.

"You're really letting them tear it down?" Stiles asks.

"It's not up to me," Derek says, "the house was forclosed on a long time ago. Laura and I sold the property when we moved to New York - doesn't belong to me anymore."

"Oh," Stiles says stupidly. It makes sense, of course it makes sense, but for some reason Stiles had always assumed that Derek still owned it. Maybe because he used to creep around it so much. 

"I don't know who bought it, but it was seized by the bank maybe two years ago or so. The house has been slated for demolition since then, but they never got around to it."

"Until now," Stiles says. "Guess somebody getting murdered in it really speeds up the government's timetable."

Instead of frowning or looking angry about that comment, as Stiles would have expected, Derek just shrugs. "Guess so," he says. 

They watch in silence as the crane starts to move, the harsh grind of the machinery breaking through the normal sounds of the forest. 

"Still," Stiles says, "I'd think this would be more of a - a _thing_. You know, your family's house."

Derek does frown at that. "That's not my family's house anymore," he says.

"It used to be."

"Yeah." Derek stares at the faraway roof, his eyes moving over it slowly, down to the very top of the second floor, barely visible through the trees. "It's been in our family for generations. My grandparents lived in it, my great-grandparents. I thought I'd live there the rest of my life."

Stiles can't stop looking at him, doesn't dare to say anything, to make a single sound.

"But it's different now." Derek seems to snap out of a daze, shaking his head slightly. His upper body shakes with the motion and Stiles is instantly reminded of a dog, shaking water out of its fur. "That's not the same house, anymore. It isn't...ours. Mine."

The Alpha male bears his throat to no one, Stiles thinks a little hysterically, in Jeff Corwin's voice, and then immediately feels guilty about it.

"So it's a good thing then, actually," Stiles says, shifting and almost slipping from his spot on the branch. Derek immediately steadies him, without even looking over. "Like - like closure."

"I guess."

They watch as the crane heaves a wrecking ball into the side of the house. The roof crumples like wet paper. From far away, it's not actually all that impressive or climactic, like watching it through a television screen. "Hey, maybe Jackson's in there, looking for you. Would solve our problem."

Derek snorts. "We need to have a discussion about your sense of humor."

"It's sick, I know. I'm a twisted kid with bad priorities."

"Well, no need to go overboard," Derek murmurs.

Stiles grins down at his knees, sharply, brightly happy all of a sudden. "Where are you gonna live now? The Super 8 isn't exactly conducive to long-term accommodation, and - well, I guess I always assumed you'd fix this place up somehow, but now..."

"There are a few houses I'm looking at," Derek says quietly. "On the other side of town."

"Other side, huh?"

"Someplace new," Derek says firmly.

The burst of something in Stiles's chest, maybe pride or happiness or awe or some mixture of them all, makes him brave enough to bump Derek's shoulder with his own, to lean a little of his weight on him, sitting there so solid and strong and quiet. Stiles can't even help himself.

"So why'd you bring me?" he asks, unable to _not._ "Not that I'm not grateful, because big machines, shit getting torn down: always a good time."

Derek turns and gives him this look, like he's an utter moron, and says, "because you do my laundry," like it explains everything.

Stiles leans in a little closer and thinks, oh. Maybe it does.

 

Stiles never came out to his mom, but she came out to him. Sort of.

She died when he was eleven, probably the cruelest point ever in Stiles's life for that particular event to occur considering he was about to start puberty, and the conversations that he had with her before she went are all so - muddled up that he can't remember specifics or circumstances at all. All he recalls from that time is just, pain, hospitals, crying, pain. Mostly pain.

But she did leave him things, things that it took a very long time for Stiles to look at, because just the thought of touching the same things that she touched or reading the same things that she read was too much to handle. Then it became a spectre of that awful time right before she died, because the very presence of that box of stuff meant that it was a deliberate action. He couldn't, still can't really, think about her gathering things together to give to him, a box of things that Shelly wanted Stiles to have, before she died. Because she knew she was going to die.

Anyway, he's still not through with all of it yet, probably won't be until he can manage to even open the thing up without feeling like he's tearing off a layer of his own skin. It's just a plastic tub, really, with a lid that snaps on, and Stiles's full name scrawled across the top in his dad's messy hand. You'd think it'd look more significant, or that there'd be an aura of importance around it or something, but it doesn't. 

The point is, Stiles found pictures inside that he couldn't help to look at, pictures of his mother from all stages of her life: her as a little kid, in a swimsuit on a beach with Stiles's grandma, her as a teenager, in hilarious clothes and a 70s haircut, her as a college student, making a face at the camera while sitting on the steps at the Stanford library, her bag overflowing with books and her nails painted black.

Shelly Stilinski's life in pictures, that lives in a photo album that sits locked in Stiles's desk, that he only looks at when he's feeling particularly brave, that contains photographic evidence that his mother was a real person, with a life and a personality and hobbies and experiences that Stiles will never fully understand. Pictures that she probably kept out of the family albums downstairs in the living room on purpose, pictures that Stiles will probably never show his dad - the one of her smoking a joint, for instance, might be a touchy subject. Or of her making out with a blonde girl while wearing a pirate costume - uh, yeah.

Stiles never knew this person, the wild, young version of his mother, who hadn't met the stuffy small-town cop yet, who hadn't had a kid, who actually was probably a little grossed out at the idea of pregnancy as a concept, honestly. Who went to anti-war protests and dyed her hair red, and smoked weed and met Ted Nugent once and posed for a picture with him while flipping off the camera. Fourteen-and-a-half-year-old Stiles was blown away by this person, and seventeen-year-old Stiles kind of wishes she were here to give him advice.

 _So you're a little gay_ , she might say, _why not? So was I! You should go for it, he's smokin'._

 _But what if I'm just confused?_ Stiles would ask. _He's a werewolf, a powerful one, and that scares me a little, and I don't know what I'm doing, but I just want everyone to be okay, and Dad's gonna freak out when he finds out about all of this._

_Would you really want him if he scared you that much?_

Stiles thinks that the imaginary version of his teenaged mother might have a point. 

He also thinks that were his mom still alive, and should he tell her about the Derek thing, and the werewolf thing, and the whole thing where he pretty much saves everyone's ass on a regular basis, she would probably not only not freak out, but she'd probably give him an epic high five. 

_Follow in my footsteps, young grasshopper,_ she'd say, and this part, Stiles is sure about, because she used to say that to him a lot. But she might follow it up with, _here's my super secret recipe for coffee-flavored donuts, you should make some for Derek and tell him you want to be his boyfriend,_ or maybe Stiles is being optimistic about that.

If Stiles is honest with himself, which he is from time to occasional time, he knows that she would approve not because Derek is particularly impressive as potential boyfriend material (he really isn't) or because Stiles is all that trustworthy when it comes to his romantic choices (he really isn't either) but because his mom was the kind of mom that thought everything their kid did was magical and wonderful and totally freaking awesome, and screw anyone else who disagreed. Like the time when Stiles decided that fashioning a trampoline out of four trees and a bedsheet was an awesome idea and broke his ankle. He got grounded by his dad, and a plate of cookies from his mom for being so creative.

His mom would ride the crazy train with Stiles all the way to the end and have a blast, and she'd never scold him for making bad decisions or falling in with the wrong crowd or getting in over his head, because she'd be right there with him, asking a million questions about werewolf politics and bugging Scott to train more and shunning the Argents at the bakery and refusing to serve them the good muffins. Because he'd never have been able to hide it from her, because she never would've even given him the option to. 

Or maybe just because she would've wanted Stiles to have the things that he wanted, like she always did. Because she thought Stiles was special, because he was _her_ kid, and that he deserved a special kind of life.

(Stiles thinks his mom would've made a much better werewolf pack member than him. For one thing, she could've made coffee-flavored donuts. But then again, Stiles takes after her, so maybe there's not that much of a difference, and as far as the donuts go, well, Stiles can probably figure it out.)

 

"So, the food guy," Stiles says.

Stiles's father peeks at him over the morning paper. "Yes?"

"I have a uh," Stiles clears his throat, gathers his pathetic courage, "crush on him? Maybe?"

The Sheriff looks remarkably unmoved. "I...kinda figured?" he says blankly.

Stiles gapes at him silently.

His dad just sighs, folds his paper, and tosses it over the edge of the table to join the growing pile on the floor, not quite _in_ the recycle bin but close enough to state his father's well-meaning, if poorly aimed, intentions. "Remember when I first ran for sheriff?" he asks, with a long-suffering, _I'm going to be late for work because of your feelings again, aren't I_ kind of tone. "Remember the deputy I ran against? Luke Stone?"

A dazed grin erupts across Stiles's face without his permission. 

"See, okay, that's why this doesn't surprise me," his dad says plainly, pointing at Stiles's grin like one would point at a forest fire.

"What?" Stiles yelps. "Are you saying I had a crush on him too? That's ridiculous. You're ridiculous, Dad."

"You _campaigned_ for him," his dad says, sounding very deeply betrayed. Maybe a little overly betrayed, considering all this took place a decade ago. 

"Okay, I put up a few posters and stuff but he paid me - "

"In hugs," his dad says flatly.

"But he had a few very valid points about your record and I really couldn't help but see the logic in his argument - "

"Because he hugged you a lot."

"Now you're making it sound creepy. I was _seven._ "

"And Luke was very dreamy and would never touch children inappropriately, yes, I get it," his dad says.

"Dad, I don't think you're acknowledging the gravitas of this moment in the way that you should," Stiles says, offended. "I just _came out_ to you."

His dad frowns thoughtfully. "Well - do you want a hug?"

Stiles blinks. "Well, they usually hug on TV when this happens."

His dad shrugs. "We can hug if you want, but you should bring me some more coffee first."

"What, are your legs broken?" Stiles grouses, but grabs the pot to top off his dad's mug anyway. Because he is weak, and also about to tell him that his food guy is a suspected murderer. Whatever.

"I'm so glad we could have this important moment," his dad says happily, taking a huge gulp. He doesn't even wait for it to cool down, because as far as Stiles knows he burned off all his nerve endings in his mouth years ago. "Thank you, son."

Stiles takes the seat next to him, contemplating the best way to approach this. Surprise attack? Sneak it in in the middle of a ramble? Spell it out in Alphabits? Very impractical, but with a certain flair, Stiles has to admit.

"So, who is he," his dad asks grudgingly. "Is he a nice boy?"

"You sound like my Jewish grandmother," Stiles says, making a face.

"Your Jewish grandmother is my Jewish mother," his dad says defensively. "It rubs off. C'mon - you obviously wanna talk about it."

Stiles sighs heavily. "I don't want you to freak out," he says, wincing.

"Why would I freak out?" his dad asks, freakily calm. "Is this connected to the weird shit you can't tell me about?"

"Don't say shit," Stiles complains, "also, yes. And: swear jar."

His dad rolls his eyes and digs a dollar bill out of his pocket, tossing it in the potted flower in the middle of the kitchen table, instead of getting up and putting it in the actual swear jar, which lives on the kitchen counter. All of Stiles's lazy genes come from this man. "Is he in a gang?"

"No," Stiles says, because whatever Lydia, the pack does not count as a gang. They don't even have a collective favorite color.

"Is he..." his dad trails off, looking thoughtful. "A stripper?"

"Oh God," Stiles blurts. "No. A world of no."

His dad frowns. "Is he a Democrat?" 

Stiles raises an eyebrow. "Dad, Mom was a Democrat."

"Nobody's perfect," his dad allows.

" _I'm_ a Democrat," Stiles says, "and shut up, nobody cares about fiscal responsibility Dad, God." 

His dad huffs. "Would you just tell me already? I have to go to work, eventually. Whenever I'm not there they turn on VH1 and all hell breaks loose." 

"Okay fine but you have to hear me out about the thing at the high school where we almost died a while back," Stiles says, "because Scott completely, one hundred percent, flat out lied, for um, reasons, reasons that I will tell you about at some undisclosed point in the future, but the point is he made it up and I backed him up because I'm a stupid idiot who did not consider the future consequences of my actions, which I am going to work on, since I know that's a thing you want me to do. I also may have underestimated my ability to get crushes on inappropriate people." Stiles swallows. "Um."

The Sheriff's face is pale. "Oh God," he says, "are you dating Derek Hale?"

" _Dating_ is not quite the term I would use."

"Mother _fucker_ ," his dad says, and drains the rest of his coffee, looking like he really wishes it were more Irish.

"I think that one deserves a five dollar bill," Stiles says tiredly, wincing when his dad turns to glare at him.

"Are you _trying_ to give me grey hair?" he accuses.

"No!" Stiles exclaims, "of course not! That is an entirely accidental side effect of my existence!"

The Sheriff groans and buries his face in his hands.

"Really, he's not that bad," Stiles says helplessly, "actually he's kind of hopeless, you know, he can't really do laundry properly and he sucks at grocery shopping and he burns toast, hence the whole food thing."

"My God, kid," his dad says, "seriously? _Seriously._ "

"And I would like to clarify up front that we are _not dating,_ and any romantic relationship is purely hypothetical and possibly one-sided, at this point," Stiles says firmly. "Also please don't threaten him. That's awkward."

"I will threaten him if I damn well want to threaten him," his dad thunders, "are you kidding me? I am your _father_. Don't take that away from me."

"Okay, okay," Stiles says, faintly alarmed. 

"Do we need to talk about proper reactions to people you think are trying to kill you?" his dad asks. "Or are you aware that it's not smart to get crushes on them?"

"I'm aware," Stiles hedges, "also he didn't try to kill me. Or anyone. I told you Scott made that up."

"Uh huh."

"It's the truth!"

" _Why_ would Scott lie about that?" his dad asks, sounding bewildered.

"Because he's a moron," Stiles says definitively.

"And because you didn't want anyone to know who was really trying to kill you?" his dad asks, in a sudden display of intuitiveness. 

Stiles makes some mumbling noises and fidgets with the coffee cups.

"Oh, you are so close to handcuffs right now," the Sheriff warns.

"It was Peter," Stiles blurts. "Peter Hale. He was the one at the school that night."

His dad stops short, his mouth closing with an abrupt click.

"We didn't tell anyone because - Scott and I were the only ones who saw him - the only ones who recognized him, really, and we knew it sounded crazy." For more reason than one, Stiles thinks. "We didn't even - it was stupid. Lydia, Jackson and Allison were pushing us to tell them who it was, and Scott got flustered and blurted out Derek's name, because - well, he couldn't think up anything better."

"You're saying Peter Hale was the one who attacked you?" his dad says carefully. "Peter Hale who, by all accounts, was comatose in the hospital until the night he died."

"Dad, come on," Stiles says soberly, "we both know Peter wasn't killed by a bear. Or a wolf. Or whatever the byline's saying these days."

"Hmm," his dad says, rather ominously.

"Also those accounts?" Stiles says, "Are actually just one, singular account, and I have it on good authority that that account was a freaking psycho. Before she, as well, was 'killed by a bear.'" Stiles flashes his finger quotes in his dad's face, watching the vein in his neck start to throb. "Tell me you were at least a little suspicious of this."

"That's none of your beeswax, Stiles," his dad says sourly. "Keep talking."

Stiles sighs heavily. "Look, Derek was there that night too - not in any attempted murdering capacity! - and he got hurt trying to protect us from Peter. I don't know where he was when you and your guys showed up, or how he got away, but it was a good thing that he did, considering that Scott tried to frame him for his trouble."

"And so you just went along with it," his dad says, "because it was - easier?"

"Easier than the truth, yeah, at the time," Stiles admits with a wince. "It's not my proudest moment, but it was less complicated than admitting that a guy in a coma just tried to implausibly murder you and all your friends." Or a giant monster, Stiles thinks, but whatever. Keeping this simple.

The Sheriff sighs heavily, his shoulders slumping. "I wish I had enough money to send you to boarding school," he grumbles. "In _Timbuktu_."

"Dream a little dream," Stiles says, not without sympathy.

"So Peter Hale attacked you," the Sheriff says, "and you told everyone it was Derek because you thought no one would believe you. Then Peter Hale is murdered, a few weeks later, and his remains were found at the Hale house, along with the body of the woman who burnt it down in the first place. And _you_ ," he glares at Stiles, "are involved in all of this, somehow, with Derek Hale, and you won't tell me exactly how because you're a _little shit_ who wants me _die of a heart attack_. Did I get everything?"

"I also would like to date him," Stiles adds. "But other than that, no."

"Great," the Sheriff says dryly. "Wonderful life choices, son."

"Yeah, I know," Stiles says in resignation. "Feel free to ground me for the rest of my life. I'm already expecting it."

"Would it stop you from liking him?" his dad asks. Stiles doesn't answer. "Thought so."

"He's a good person, Dad," Stiles says. "He's had a hard time of it."

"I'm not disputing that," his father replies. "Who was working swing shift the night of the Hale fire? Not you, thank you very much."

Stiles holds up his hands in surrender.

"But this is where _I_ am," he continues, gaze sharp and demanding on Stiles's face. "I have a security tape of a creature way too big to be a wolf and with eyes way too freaky to be normal. I have a mug shot of Derek Hale that broke my freaking camera. I have a son who fights with the local gun nut and has double-sided conversations with him at my dinner table. I have a list as long as my arm of unexplainable deaths. And a very high stress level, which is making the entire situation worse." He cocks an eyebrow at Stiles. "So. Where exactly _am_ I, Stiles?"

"Confused and worried?" Stiles guesses weakly. 

His father snorts. "I think the phrase I'm looking for is, 'duh.'"

Stiles pitches forward, resting his forehead in his hands. There are only so many options he has here: to tell his dad everything, which will inevitably result in his father becoming more involved in this werewolf business and thus, being in even more immediate danger than he already is regularly, or to lie some more and possibly alienate him completely. Neither one seems appealing, or even logical. 

Damned if I do, damned if I don't, Stiles thinks.

"Peter Hale was dangerous," he says into his hands, not having the will nor the strength to look back over at his dad quite yet. "He was powerful. He was - he was _different._ And now he's dead, and we are all better off. In so many ways."

"What killed him?" his dad asks quietly. 

"That, I'm not going to tell you," Stiles says, bringing his head up. "And I'm not going to tell you _how_ he was different or what that thing on your security tape was, because it'll sound crazy and it's not going to make a difference anyway, other than freak you out even more than you are already. I will tell you that I am seventeen years old, I am responsible, I am smart, I have very good instincts about people, and Derek Hale is one of the good guys. One of the few, in fact."

His father just stares at him, eyes bright. 

"What I'm really asking you to do is trust me," Stiles says, inhaling shakily. "Trust me when I say that I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that I, or anyone else, won't get hurt."

"Jesus, Stiles," his dad mutters, rubbing at his eyes with a shaky hand. 

"I'm already in this, anyway," Stiles says reasonably. "This is our life, okay? There's nothing we can do about it now but buckle down and try not to get thrown around too hard."

There's a long moment in which Stiles and his father do nothing but stare at each other, frozen in a moment of utter, debilitating helplessness.

"Well," his dad says, clearing his throat gruffly. "I suppose you've got me there."

His voice sounds pretty clogged. Stiles refrains from mentioning it. "Look, he's probably not even interested anyway," he says quickly, going for reassuring but coming out somewhere between whiny and twelve-year-old-girl instead. "He's older and has lots of angst and he lived in New York City for like five years and had lots of girlfriends, I assume, so this entire conversation is probably pointless anyway."

"Stiles," his dad says intently, "you risked a lifetime grounding to tell me about him. How much easier would it have been to keep lying to me? But you didn't." He sighs and shakes his head. "You wouldn't do that if you didn't think this was serious."

Stiles realizes with a jolt that he has a point.

"Do I get to meet him, at least?" his dad asks, all resigned shoulders and heavy eyes. Stiles's heart sinks down into the ultra-super-guilty place, somewhere between his shoes.

"Of course you get to meet him," Stiles says, "he was the one who told me to tell you, actually. He kept bugging me about it."

"Oh," the Sheriff says blankly. 

"I think he's a bit of a fan, actually," Stiles says. "He said once that you're a decent cop, which in Derek-speak is practically exultant." 

"Oh," the Sheriff says again, in slightly warmer tones. "Well, I suppose we could have him over for dinner. We could have another one of those fun ones, where everyone is talking about stuff that nobody's saying out loud."

"That's the spirit," Stiles says encouragingly. 

"You will tell me everything, eventually," his dad says, reaching out and clasping Stiles's wrist. It sounds more like an order than a question. "Right?"

"Dad," Stiles says fondly, "I have no doubt that you will figure it out long before I work up enough bravery and/or stupidity to tell you. You're a smart cookie, you know. A good cop. That's why they pay you the big bucks, after all."

His dad smiles faintly. "Sure."

"Just trust me," Stiles says, "with the weird shit that goes on in this town, you'll be thanking me later on for this extra time spent in the dark. Ignorance is - well, not bliss, but at least something where you're not nearly as weirded out all the time."

His dad just raises an eyebrow at him and squeezes his wrist once before letting go.

"Swear jar," he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> psych! Betcha you thought this was the last chapter, huh. WELL SO DID I. AHAHAHA FACEPALM.


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